Arm & Hammer Clump & Seal Cat Litter, Fresh Home Scent 28lb

It is so nice to be able to write a glowing review for something - especially something as necessary as cat litter. My previous brand changed its formula a few years ago, and ever since, I've been searching for a litter that actually does what the ads all say it will do.This one does!I have two cats and three pans. The aspects of cat litter that I care about are: scent, tracking, dust, odor control, clumping ability, and the all important one: will the cats use it? Here's how Clump & Seal does:Scent: I am really sensitive to scents, and I do not like scented cat litter. Clump & Seal has a subtle, fresh, non-flowery, non-perfumy scent (kind of like laundry fresh from the dryer). My cats don't mind it, and (I never thought I would say this) I actually find it pleasant. The nicest thing about the scent is that you won't even detect it if you are more than 3 feet away from the litter pan.Tracking: MUCH less than any other brand I've tried in the past few years. Tracking is essentially zero. With other brands, I had to sweep tracked litter all the way from the pans to across the room AND up the stairs. With this litter, all I have to do is sweep whatever the cats kick directly out of the pans, and that is confined to the area immediately around the pans.Dust: This stuff is essentially dust-free. Even as you pour it, there is no big cloud of dust, and I no longer need to wear a dust mask to clean the pans. I kid you not.Odor control: excellent. With this litter, guests really do not know that there is a cat pan in the house, much less three pans, and just as importantly, my own fussy nose does not smell them either. The ultimate test was when I went on travel for work for a week and the petsitter "forgot" to scoop. The pans certainly needed attention when I got back, but still, there was NO odor, which was pretty astonishing. (This is the feature that the TV ads tout. Imagine that - an accurate TV ad!)Clumping: Yup, it clumps very well, and the clumps are firm enough to make scooping really easy.Will the cats use it: I have three pans for my two crotchety, elderly cats who brook no changes in their routine. One is a true diva in this respect, and she will signal her displeasure with new brands of litter by, well, doing exactly what you'd expect. When I started the switch to Clump & Seal, I did one pan at a time, to give them time to adjust - until I realized that they were both preferentially using the pan with the Clump & Seal and ignoring the other two pans! All cats are different, but my two took to this litter immediately.The thing about cat litter is that you need it to work, and work well. Litter that does its job well is polite: it won't announce its presence in any way. Litter that doesn't do its job announces its presence in a variety of unpleasant ways.I am happy to say that this is the most polite litter I've ever found. (My cats are happy, too.)

Hands down the best cat litter I've ever used, and I've tried quite a few over the last 7 years of my cat's life. I've tried Fresh Step Unscented Extreme cat litter, Fresh Step Febreeze Multi-Cat litter, Purina Tidy Cats, Precious Cat Ultra Scoopable cat litter. In the Arm & Hammer cat litter family, I've tried their Clump & Seal - Multi-Cat litter and Double Duty litter before, and for whatever reason, this particular Arm & Hammer Clump & Seal - Fresh Home is the only one that doesn't immediately begin smelling of ammonia and poo within a day of use by even one cat. I honestly don't think that I'll ever switch to another brand.PROS:-The litter is scented, but you really can't smell it unless you're putting your nose right next to it-The "clump & seal" technology seems to actually work to keep the litter fresh and extend the amount of time you can wait between cleaning your cat's litter box.-I've gone out of town for up to 10 days in the past, leaving my cat alone at home with someone coming over to just feed and water him, and the litter still somehow managed to remain odorless.-Has superior clumping to other brands of litter. Once clumped together, the litter never falls apart when scooping.-Seriously, this litter remains odorless for DAYS. I've had up to 2 cats using the one litter box in my house, you won't smell anything even if you don't clean the box for a few days.CONS:-This litter can be a little dusty when you're pouring it out.-You are going to develop bad habits and start to clean the litter box less and less as it becomes apparent that you can get away with it.

This cat litter is great! Practically odorless!

So most of my review is going to sound like a giant complaint, so it probably seems weird that I'd give this 4 stars.But...I think it is a good product, and Arm & Hammer makes excellent cat litters. This product just really sucked for my use. I think for a lot of people, in many situations, it is a great choice.Situation: 2 cats. 1 automatic litter box, specifically the Litter Robot II. Situated in the "utility" closet (aka the central heater & water heater closet) which is in the middle of my kitchen. City garden (basement) flat with minimal ventilation (aka not a lot of windows, and those few are small and at ground level). All of which is to say that odor control is a very important issue. My cats are on a high quality diet, so their waste doesn't smell as bad as a cat that's eating a cheaper food...the food they eat has a huge impact on the smell of their waste (and of course their overall health, etc, etc). But I still have two creatures pooping about 10 or so feet from my food prep area, so mild smell or not, I still want to control it.Pros:+ Clumps fairly fast and stays solid. Some of the fast-clumping litters will clump, but then the clumps break apart when you scoop. These clumps stay solid.+ The scent is not at all noticeable. It's almost like it neutralizes the scent that would exist if it was unscented, so you have an odorless product. You never want a perfumed litter.+ It kills odors. There are zero smells emanating from my cats litter box. And it's not just because I have a Litter Robot. When you open the waste drawer on my litter robot, even with 3-4 days worth of used litter in there, there's still no smell in the waste drawer. It kills the poop smell, and eliminates that urine ammonia. You can use this is a non-automatic litter box and know that odors will be dampened and/or eliminated.+ Low dust. I've never met a no-dust litter (even crystal litter, pine litter and recycled newspaper litter can be dusty), but I'm not choking on clouds of dust when I fill the litter box.Cons:- It's heavy. This realistically means nothing to anyone with a standard or 'manual' litter box, or one of those LitterMaids. But weight can be a factor with a fancier automatic box such as the Litter Robot II. If I fill the box (or globe) up to the fill line, it can become stuck mid-cycle and I need to power-cycle it. This gets kind of annoying, figuring out how much I can put in before it's too much for my machine.- The tracking. Oh my lord, the god awful tracking and flinging. There is litter in Every. Single. Corner. of my house, and on Every. Single. Surface. Legit. Not kidding. One cat is a short-hair, one is a long-hair that's kept trimmed down (except for her legs). When I say I have to vacuum off my sheets every night before bed, I am not engaging in hyperbole. That is a literal statement. I moved the dust-buster into my bedroom. The utility/litter closet floor gets swept twice a day. There are paw prints everywhere. The bathroom sink, where Old Cat likes to nap, is dotted with blotches of litter that's tracked there on her paws. I have to vacuum the rugs every single day. Sweep my kitchen 2-3 times a day if I'm walking barefoot. I regret buying 10 boxes of this. Here I was thinking "wow, I'll stock the back closet and not have to buy litter for ever and ever amen!". And now I'm thinking "ohmygod why did I buy so much of this crap, please let the basement flood and ruin it all so I have an excuse to replace it". Sure I could replace it all, but I'm a frugal so-and-so who won't replace something until it breaks, and uses up everything to the last drop.It's so weird that this litter that is so heavy it throws off my litter robot is also so lightweight that it tracks everywhere in my house, but there you go.So why 4 stars when I hate it so much?It clumps. It kills odors.Those are the two most important things you want from a clumping cat litter. And this does those two things really well. And god forbid you live in an even smaller flat than I do, or don't even have a closet you can hide your litter box in (in which case, you have to search ikea hacks for privacy cat boxes, they have awesome ideas)....as least you can have a litter that disguises the fact that you even have pets that poop. Seriously, people (including my landlord) walk into my flat and remark on the fact that they can't smell cat. If you smell anything bad in my flat, it's probably that chicken I burned last night when I was trying to experiment with some weird reduction sauce with garlic, and things went awry. But cat smells? Nope. Nada. Zilch. Zero.So to sum up: It tracks everywhere, I hate it, but I keep using it, while keeping my eye out for another low/no-tracking litter that odor kills. But I appreciate the fact that it really does kill odors and leads strangers to be surprised when they discover I have multiple cats since they otherwise would not have known I had any pets.